The present invention relates to an electronic component mounting apparatus and an electronic component mounting method for mounting electronic components on a substrate.
An electronic component mounting apparatus is designed to position a substrate on a conveyor in a positioning unit, move a transfer head horizontally by a moving table, and mount an electronic component at a position of specified coordinates on the substrate. The substrate varies in size, ranging from several centimeters or less to more than ten centimeters in the length of one side. Hitherto, the conveyor in the positioning unit was assembled with a longer size so as to be applicable to large substrates.
Generally, while mounting an electronic component with a transfer head on a substrate positioned on a conveyor in a positioning unit, a next substrate on which an electronic component is to be mounted is waiting at a waiting stage on a delivery conveyor provided at an upstream side of this conveyor. After finishing mounting of the electronic component on the substrate on the conveyor in the positioning unit, the substrate after mounting is sent out to a discharge conveyor, and the next substrate is sent onto the conveyor in the positioning unit from the delivery conveyor, and it is positioned therein, and mounting of electronic component by the transfer head is started.
Therefore, conventionally, since the conveyor in the positioning unit was assembled with a large size so as to be applicable to large substrates, in the case of small substrates, it took a long feed distance and time to send small substrates from the waiting stage onto the conveyor in the positioning unit, and the working efficiency was poor.
It is hence an object of the invention to present an electronic component mounting apparatus and an electronic component mounting method capable of mounting electronic components by efficiently feeding substrates into the positioning unit depending on the size of the substrates.
To achieve the object, the invention provides an electronic component mounting apparatus comprising a transfer head for mounting an electronic component on a substrate, a moving table for moving the transfer head horizontally, and a substrate positioning unit provided in a mounting area of electronic components capable of moving the transfer head horizontally, in which a plurality of conveyors for conveying the substrate are disposed independently of each other in the substrate positioning unit, substrate receiving means are independently disposed, respectively, beneath these conveyors, a substrate delivery conveyor is disposed at an upstream side of the plurality of conveyors, and a substrate discharge conveyor is disposed at a downstream side.
Preferably, moreover, a first substrate stopper is provided among the plurality of conveyors so as to be free to move in and out at the substrate conveying side, and a second substrate stopper is provided at a rear part of the downstream side conveyor so as to be free to move in and out at the substrate conveying side.
The invention also provides an electronic component mounting method for mounting an electronic component on a substrate by a transfer head moving horizontally as being driven by a moving table, in which a plurality of conveyors are disposed independently of each other in a mounting area of electronic components capable of moving the transfer head horizontally, and when mounting an electronic component on a large substrate, the plurality of conveyors are used as the mounting stage, and the large substrate is positioned over the plurality of conveyors, and the electronic component is mounted by the transfer head, or when mounting an electronic component on a small substrate, a single conveyor at the downstream side is used as the mounting stage for positioning the small substrate, and the electronic component is mounted by the transfer head, while another single conveyor at the upstream side is used as the waiting stage on which a next small substrate is waiting.
In this constitution, in the case of a large substrate, the plurality of conveyors are used as the mounting stage of electronic component. In the case of a small substrate, one single conveyor is used as the mounting stage of electronic component, while the other single conveyor is used as waiting stage for next small substrate. When the mounting of electronic component on the small substrate on one single conveyor is finished and this small substrate is sent out to the discharge conveyor, the next small substrate is sent promptly from the other single conveyor onto the one single conveyor, and mounting of electronic components is started.